biomass

bi·o·mass  (b-ms)

n.

1. The total mass of living matter within a given unit of environmental area.

2. Plant material, vegetation, or agricultural waste used as a fuel or energy source.

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biomass

Noun

the total number of living organisms in a given area

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biomass  (b-ms)

1. The total amount of living material in a given habitat, population, or sample. Specific measures of biomass are generally expressed in dry weight (after removal of all water from the sample) per unit area of land or unit volume of water.

2. Renewable organic materials, such as wood, agricultural crops or wastes, and municipal wastes, especially when used as a source of fuel or energy. Biomass can be burned directly or processed into biofuels such as ethanol and methane. See more at biofuel.

A Closer Look When biologist J.B.S. Haldane was once asked if the study of life on Earth gave him any insights into God, he replied jokingly that his research revealed that God must have "an inordinate fondness for beetles." Haldane's comment is based on the fact that there are more beetle speciesalmost 400,000 now knownthan any other animal species. Beetles are just a fragment of the Earth's biomass, the matter that makes up the Earth's living organisms. Insects alonewhich comprise almost one million known species and perhaps millions yet to be discoveredcreate an amazing amount of biomass. The number of individual insects is about 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000). Insects probably have more biomass than any other type of land animal. In comparison, if the weight of the Earth's human population were added up, the biomass of the insect population would be 300 times as great. Biomass also refers to the organic material on Earth that has stored sunlight in the form of chemical energy. Biomass fuels, including wood, wood waste, straw, manure, sugar cane, and many other byproducts from a variety of agricultural processes, continue to be a major source of energy in much of the developing world. There are many who advocate the use of biomass for energy as it is readily available, whereas fossil fuels, such as petroleum, coal, or natural gas, take millions of years to form in the Earth and are finite and subject to depletion as they are consumed.

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	biomass - plant materials and animal waste used as fuel fuel - a substance that can be consumed to produce energy; "more fuel is needed during the winter months"; "they developed alternative fuels for aircraft"
	2.	biomass - the total mass of living matter in a given unit area mass - the property of a body that causes it to have weight in a gravitational field